Sisters and brothers in faith, members and friends, we are the Storrs Congregational Church in this day and hour.  Since spring,2017, some of us, (the Just Peace Team) have been gathering to learn about Just Peace, and Just Peace churches in the United Church of Christ.  Now we, the team, feel ourselves led by the Spirit to invite and encourage us, the whole church, to commit ourselves to declaring and becoming a Just Peace Church.

Becoming a Just Peace church is a path parallel to declaring ourselves Open and Affirming, then making Open and Affirming real.  The first step for us as a congregation is to adopt a statement of commitment to being and growing as a Just Peace Church, so you will find the proposed statement here.

Next, we together and individually, need to go about the necessary work of addressing the causes of the injustice and suffering, building the world that God dreams we can be.   In the words of the hymn, “O For A World” by Sr. Miriam Therese Winter, “O for a world, where everyone respects each others ways, where love is lived and all is done with praise.”

Storrs Congregational Church, United Church of Christ
A Proposed Statement of Commitment
to Become a Just Peace Church

Remembering that we are commanded to love God with all our being (Dt. 6:5), and to love our neighbors as ourselves (Lv. 19:18); and

Remembering that in 1985 the United Church of Christ laid the groundwork for churches to become Just Peace churches; that is, congregations of the United Church of Christ that boldly commit themselves to nonviolent means of righting unjust systems, and to deep exploration of the intersections of peace and justice; and

Knowing that all humanity needs and deserves just and fair access to air, water, food, housing, employment and health care, and knowing that too many are denied access to life’s necessities, and are denied access to legal redress; and

Believing that we are called into the church to accept the cost and joy of discipleship, we as a church and as individual people of faith commit ourselves to giving time, talents and dollars to the ministry of advocacy to change unjust policies and systems; and
to ministries creating

abundance where there is scarcity,

justice where there is injustice,

cooperation and peace where there is confrontation and conflict,

restoration and healing of our common home, the earth; and

Knowing that it is in God, that we live and breathe and have our being (Acts 17:18); we will be faithful in those practices which maintain and enhance our spiritual health, including spending time in fellowship with other disciples, in the study of scripture, and in prayer especially offering our Lord’s Prayer with keen awareness of the phrase, “thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth;” and

Knowing that we cannot do such work alone, we will seek many avenues of human collaboration and cooperation.

After prayerful consideration, we, the members of Storrs Congregational Church, United Church of Christ, gathered in meeting on this the 28^th day of Jan. 2018, therefore adopt this proposed statement and thus commit ourselves to being and growing as a Just Peace Church.

[UPDATE: The Just Peace Statement was approved unanimously by the congregation at the January 28th, 2018 annual meeting.]